September 11, 2015
Gifts
My grandma was a staunch
believer. However grandpa, as well as most of their children, grandchildren and
great-grandchildren kept the Lord at arm’s length. When grandma passed away, I wound
up with some of her religious themed items simply because no one knew what else
to do with them. The eclectic collection includes a famed lithograph of the
Lord, a big letter (unread) Bible, and a decorative Scripture plate. Most of
the items came from special occasion gift stores and were given to grandma by family
members who were without spiritual understanding. It didn’t matter who gifted
her with a new generic gilded Bible, grandma would never have traded it for her
well-worn American Standard Study Bible. Proverbs reminded me that in some cases
gifts can in fact resemble a bribe. “A gift opens the way for the giver and
ushers him into the presence of the great” (Proverbs 18:16 NIV).
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Gail;
-----A bribe is just as much a business transaction as is buying a can of beans from City Market. Since the transaction involves “services rendered”, it is even more like hiring an attorney. But since the illegality of it doesn’t involve hiring someone to lie for you as much as someone to decide in your favor, it is hiring the judge. Stripping away attitudes to view only the facts, campaign contributions get bundled by middle-men who are actually bribers, not to mention big bribes…er…contributions of wealthy donors. Businesses often contribute bribes to both candidates running for the same seat, assuring themselves a piece of the decisions no matter who wins. Then there are three cornered bribes, like, “Overpay my foundation for my speech, and I will assure new legislation increases your profits.” Of course, all businesses incur expenses, so also do non-profits. A foundation is a particular kind of non-profit which sprinkles the monies of its contributors around to various causes usually in the genre of its own contributors’ interests. So, when the foundation is really a bribe business, it must incur some expenses of its own in the nature of bribes, such as making sure certain reporters get access to juicy information advancing their careers so they will write stories beneficial the non-profit. If winked at often enough, a whole economy of bribing forms. Crony capitalism is such an economy. Political loyalty of big businesses gets rewarded by legislation and regulations affecting their market share. For many years I was perplexed by the propensity of big businesses’ support for left-wing, big government, regulation heavy politics. Why would any business desire to decrease its freedom by increasing regulation? Because big business can afford the big legal costs over-regulation causes; little business can not. Therefore, heavy regulation chokes small businesses out of the market by making compliance unsustainably expensive, leaving customers with only the big businesses, the “bribers”, for their goods and services. And when companies like GE, companies which have been developers of the American lifestyle and are renowned for the comforts and pleasures of Americana, lend decorum as subtle as the word “forward” or the idea of “progress” to their advertising imagery - words which mean something very specific in the political world - the tender, subliminally swayable parts of the people’s heart open more to politicians using those words in their rhetoric. No money changes hands. But one brand of politics gets more empowered than does its competitor. That would be the big-regulating brand using the expression “Forward” like a label for almost a century - collectivism, the genre of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Roosevelt (according to his own interior secretary,) which loves to call itself “progressive” for the deceitful value of that word as well. And we haven’t even discussed the hedonism and the sense of self importance which on one hand destroys a mind’s ability to discern reality, and on the other hand is the soul of a giant market for diverse perversions. Like the striped sticks Jacob laid before Laban’s herds brought forth striped and mottled offspring, the entertainment media lays perversion before the people perverting minds ever more needful of voting godless, progressives into positions of authority for securing rights to even more perversion. That’s why the entertainment industry is 90% Democrat and 90% of Democrat politicians support perversion.
-----I tell you truly, these blood moons ending this month are not a warning. They are the writing on the festal wall, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz aside, and it doesn’t take a Daniel to read them.
-----Now, think about the gifts of the Spirit. They are of a totally different economy, an economy to be given the whole market very, very soon. Hallelujah! Amen!
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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